My New Year's Resolution in 2012 was to be a better, more confident cook . I hoped to use this blog to chronicle my culinary adventures (and misadventures). Ever since, I have been hooked, and the kitchen is my happy place! I have also become a vegetarian in that time. I may cook some weird things, but they're really good! Trust the vegetarian, okay?

Recipe Index

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Low Fat Baked Pasta with Spinach

Okay so I will start this post by apologizing that this is my second post in a row without pictures! But the week I made the carrot cake and this ziti bake was a crazy one, what with the golf tournament and the last week of school insanity. So no, there are no photos of this low fat baked pasta with spinach; I promise to be much better from now on. But I can tell you that part of the reasons is because it was all eaten very quickly!

Rachael was on one of her diets - she gets on these kicks every now and then - and it was just going to be the two of us home for dinner. I know that her all-time favorite meal is ziti, so I checked the Skinny Taste blog and was thrilled to find a low fat baked pasta dish - and a vegetarian one, nonetheless! I stopped at Vincent's on the way home from work and got what I needed, and then went home to whip up some dinner.

It all came together pretty quickly. While the ziti cooked, I was able to make the sauce, which has spinach, oregano, garlic, and basil to give it lots of flavor - not to mention mozzarella, parmesan and ricotta cheeses! Hard to believe it's still low fat, isn't it!? But you use part-skim ricotta and mozzarella, and all the spinach helps to boost the nutrition up there as well. Mix it all together, pour it into a pan, bake at 375 for a half hour, and you have dinner - dinner at 296 calories per serving, mind you. As expected, Rachael loved it, and took more to lunch the next couple days. The rest of my family straggled home one by one and everyone thought it was a delicious meal - even the picky ones!. The fact that the recipe begins with the words "low fat" can be our little secret.